Bottom line: A spat between Hisense and Sharp over the former's use of the latter's brand name spotlights the dangers of relying on such licensing agreements for Chinese companies going abroad.

Sharp sues Hisense over brand agreement

An entertaining battle is rippling through the headlines as we head into mid-week, pitting Taiwanese contract manufacturing titan Hon Hai (Taipei: 2317) against Chinese TV maker Hisense (Shanghai: 600060) in a battle for the Sharp (Tokyo: 67...

Bottom line: A new arbitration claim by a LeEco supplier could trigger a domino effect that sends the company into crisis, while TCL's first BlackBerry model is likely to get lukewarm reviews when it debuts in March.

TCL teases first BlackBerry model at CES

We'll close out the week with a couple of smartphone headlines, which seems appropriate since the world's biggest consumer electronics show, CES, is taking place this week in Las Vegas. All 3 companies in the news are...

Bottom line: TCL's new licensing deal with BlackBerry will end up as a quiet failure due to TCL's weak R&D skills and lack of consumer appeal to the BlackBerry name.  

TCL, BlackBerry in licensing tie-up

When does adding two negatives yield a positive? The answer is "never", but dying smartphone makers BlackBerry (Toronto: BB) and TCL (Shenzhen: 000100) are hoping that maybe this time will be different. Of course, it's easy for me to predict disaster for this particular ...